You do not have to be perfect - at least not straight away. We are called to be 'perfect as our father in heaven is perfect' but this implies, as I understand it, a level of humility. We actually can never have the wisdom of God, thus being perfect for us means learning to listen to and respond to God's will in our heart. Only then can we be perfect like God, as only then are we acting in ways that are most good and wise. But until such time as we are totally responsive to God's wise will, and seek His blessings and guidance for whatever actions we take, we will make mistakes. Now, many people will take these mistakes to heart, and this may reduce their self-esteem in damaging ways that lead to self-hatred, despair, low-confidence and even depression. This is a great danger to one's spiritual progress, as it focusses one's attention too much on the self in negative ways. Instead we must accept, in humility, our weaknesses and we must also understand that if in any actions we are acting without the involvement of God then there is a good chance that we will be making mistakes. This is the lesson we must all learn (as I understand). There is no room for overly reproaching oneself, rather each such mistake, and reflection on it, should simply serve as a reminder to our own human fallibility, and focus our attention on being more in touch with God, His will and on not acting out of our selfishness or blindness or arrogance. As long as we are trying to do this, and seeking God's help in doing so, there is not much more we can do. We will of course make mistakes, and this is God's way of showing us our weaknesses, which we must strive to overcome with His help, by turning to Him at such moments in future rather than relying on our own strength and resources. We have no strength or wisdom without God, this is the lesson. Once again, I feel we must be like children, children are often corrected by parents, and whilst such firm but gentle corrections might temporalily affect their ego, they typically do not affect a child's self-esteem. The child knows it is a child and accepts that it has much to learn. And so must we as adults.

Of course, learning to turn to, and respond to, God in all one's actions is no easy feat, not to mention that most of us are burdened by bad habits and inherited behavioural patterns that make this extremely difficult (eg: violence is in many cases a 'learned behaviour' passed from one generation to the next). Nevertheless, we must try, and with God's help we will eventually succeed. There is no victory without struggle, and the biggest struggle in life is with ourselves and our fallen, fleshy nature. In each of us is a pure spirit which, through a combined effort by God and ourselves, needs to be set free. Freedom is the goal and a delightful one - freedom from selfish desires, from lowly motivations. I also feel that the harder the climb the greater the victory, thus the heavier the burdens on your soul, the more 'fallen' your 'born' nature is, the greater the strength and reward to be achieved on successfully overcoming these. Particularly at this time in human history any complete success would be an enormous achievement, and even good progress is probably a rare delight for God.

One factor making the job harder is knowing who we should be, what we should be like. Who we are are and what we are doing here are questions that should sit prominantly in the minds of our youth. However, I fear that these questions are shoved aside in our society with all the distractions of the modern world, and a prevailing philosophy that we are no more than advanced animals, and that the best hope for joy in our short life is to indulge in all the sensual and selfish 'delights' that in fact bring death to the soul. So "who am I?", "What does it mean to be a woman or a man?", "How should we behave?", "How should the sexes relate to each other?" These are all important questions that need to be considered, not only from a worldy perspective (as such worldly analyses are quite common today) but also from a spiritual one.

There is no doubt that it is God's desire that here on earth, and even amongst His Angels, no one is entirely self-sufficient. All depend on one another for something, and on God above all. All have different talents, abilities and gifts. This is true between individuals as it is between sexes, and perhaps even between nations. Thus there is equality between all God's children on earth, all have some advantage or another, all are called to the same great destiny, but all are clearly not the same. With different gifts come different roles in life (and 'life' in this context is eternal). As to men and women, as I understand from the writings of Lorber, Lewis and others - who in turn take their cue from the bible and other sources, the difference between men and women is that men have a greater gift of wisdom and women of volition (i.e women respond instantaneously from the heart). Of course, such gifts are only fully evident in the perfect person, and will only be partially evident in the 'fallen' person. Thus it is quite possible that a somewhat enlightened woman shows considerably more wisdom than a fallen man. And in such cases, he would be best to take her advice. However, at some point in the development of individuals and humanity as a whole, here or in the beyond, such differences should be become quite evident. It is only in such situations that a women can expect to 'obey' her husband (due to the gift of wisdom) as of course both he and she, must obey God above all. Some women may take offence at this, as obeying today is seen as demeaning, whereas in fact, spiritually it is the most important ability - as long as the obedience comes from a pure love and not from fear, or expectation, or for other wordly reasons. The fundamental test for Adam after all was whether he was able to obey God, his failure on that test led to the fall of man and the tree of sin which we see so evidently today, and throughout human history, that has grown from that failure.

Thus in their perfect state, men and women seek to help each other mutually and equally with their gifts. Men seeking to give the gift of wisdom to women and women seeking to share their gift of volition with men. And - as I understand it - in the end all differences disappear, as each man will merge with a woman to form one 'complete being', but encompassing two separate personalities. A similar process of unification I believe also takes place between each perfected being and God, whereby the perfected person merges with God to become one with Him, but again without losing his separate personality. The bliss of this merging of one person with another in the closest, most spiritual form of pure love is something I have touched on in a previous post.

So fight on I implore you, fight with yourself and devils in your flesh to attain freedom. And do so with humility but not self-hatred or guilt - as these are devil's tricks to impede you by focussing you and your thoughts negatively on the self. Certainly feel guilty once you recognise sin, and do all you can to acknowledge your error, and if possible repair any damage you have done or, if not possible, ask God if He can execute such a repair for you. But once sin is recognised and repented, then move on. We all in the end must forgive each other our sins - that is part of the journey to perfection, so do not punish yourself relentlessly with guilt for your past, inevitable,weaknesses and mistakes, instead move on, seeking to forgive others as you would be forgiven (as per our Lord's prayer). Judgement of you or anyone else, does not lie with you - it is the prerogative of God - so give to God what is His - that is the right to judge - and accept what He has said in this regard - that He has died for our sins, that He has paid the price Himself - so that you might be gloriously free. Now get on with perfecting yourself in the understanding that even the sweetest, most heavenly fruit is for a period sour and distasteful. And that it must be so, and is entirely within the order of God. What matters then is not what you have been, but only what you will become.